At the centenary Shakespeare on Screen conference in Málaga, Spain, in September,
1999, Kenneth Rothwell gave the closing plenary. Afterwards Darren Kerr asked
him the following questions.

DK Russell Jackson opened this conference saying we are collectively
arriving at what the topic is and you closed it by remarking on reaching an
apex in this field of study. Could you elaborate?

KR We're studying Shakespeare in the movies, on screen and through
other new electronic technologies. The study of Shakespeare on film has run
parallel with this new way of communicating and it has taken a century for
us to find a vocabulary to manage this concept. Initially, fifty years ago
people in Shakespeare studies were very reluctant to have anything to do with
what Walter Benjamin called "the mechanical reproduction of art."
Nowadays we'd call it the electronic reproduction of art. They [Shakespeare
scholars] didn't know what to make of it. It made them very nervous and we
had difficulty gaining a foothold in the academic establishment. This conference
marks a milestone.

DK So despite a hundred years of Shakespeare on screen it is only
now that we have the beginnings of an academic understanding?

KR We're right on the threshold. The twenty-first century will show
and open up great progress in this area. The problem is that people still
see a conflict between the word and the image and I think as the electronic
culture becomes increasingly ensconced in our thinking that gap may narrow.
The twenty-first century may not see this huge gap as the last generation
saw it.

DK Your closing lecture was one of maybe two or three talks that celebrated
film. Why is there a lack of academic attention that praises Shakespeare on
film in a context of cinematic art?

KR I think it is because what you see here [the centenary conference]
is a mixture of people who have been trained in the printed word and it is
difficult for them to break out of that. Ironically some haven't changed their
thinking one bit. And essentially they're still looking down their noses at
[laughs] film, and the stigma attached to it.

DK Is it time to get away from studying Shakespeare on screen purely
in terms of, for example, what I see as tired arguments on the politics of
race and gender and focus on how the cinematic uses the texts?

KR Exactly. I totally respect Shakespeare's language. That's where
I began but the films that are made based on his work, and I know they're
not 'Shakespeare' -- who on earth ever said it was -- but the films based
on his language are not properly understood if all you do is criticise them
on the grounds that they do not reflect the Quarto or Folio texts. It's irrelevant.
In a film you have to make a scenario. You have to establish new ways of framing
it, new methods of continuity. You can't just rely on the Shakespearean text.
If you want to read the text you can do it in the library. The page, the stage
and the screen. Those are the three environments and I don't think we should
confuse them but they interrelate too. There are paradoxes here because it's
not just either or, it's both.

DK Where do you think Shakespeare and film have met successfully?

KR Well, ones that have been creative recontextualisations and reinterpretations
of the play. The least successful have been ones that attempt to merely replicate
which ties in with this idea of a 'haemorrhage of significance' when all you
do is record something on a camera that's just flat with no significance to
it. You have to rearrange it for photographic purposes.

DK Can we have good film that is embedded in Shakespeare's text?

KR Yes. The Olivier/Burges Othello that is almost a photographed stage
version but it works because of brilliant actors. If they're no good forget
it. Acting transcends all other considerations. No film director could salvage
Jason Robards' Brutus, for example, about thirty years ago.

DK Do you foresee Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost as a thirties
musical as innovative Shakespeare?

KR People are always resetting Shakespeare and all I can say about
it is that Shakespeare himself had very little feelings for historical accuracy.
His plays were filled with anachronisms. There were clocks before the clock
existed, Roman Catholic monasteries in pre-Christian times. So I don't think
the status of Love's Labour's Lost as a musical is really all that
important.

DK Has cinema pushed Shakespeare back into the realm of popular entertainment
after centuries of academic reverence?

KR Yes.

DK So is this a good or a bad thing?

KR Well, there have been many teachers who think that the entanglement
of Shakespeare with mass entertainment is a bad thing and I can understand
their feelings. On the other hand why not turn a threat to one's advantage.
If we are teaching Shakespeare why not welcome greater access to his work?
The Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet stimulated many students' interests
in Shakespeare without the need for any other help. I mean the film itself
was enough to move them. So I think it's definitely happened [i.e. returning
Shakespeare to popular culture] but I also think that the films don't reach
out to as wide an audience as people think. How many people really if they
had to choose between a Hong Kong action movie and Shakespeare at the box
office would choose Shakespeare? In some moods I'd choose the action movie
myself.

DK I think the thirst for action, bloodshed etc is undoubted so are
you surprised it has taken so long for a big screen treatment of Titus
Andronicus?

KR Well in view of the fact there have been so few stage productions
of Titus it's probably not so surprising. But I am delighted and looking
forward to it. It is wonderful to have so much attention on one's subject.
If you teach English lit how many films are made of Paradise Lost or
Spenser's The Faerie Queene?

DK Finally, you said that you regarded yourself as someone who presents
views rather than inflicts them. So if you were to inflict them on screen
which play by which director would you like to see?

KR Hmmm. Well my favourite tragedy is Hamlet. My favourite
comedy is Twelfth Night. I wish that Stanley Kubrick had been around
to direct a Shakespeare play. He did a great job on Barry Lyndon based on
a nineteenth century novel. That would have been fascinating. But. I'll take
Robert Altman or Woody Allen. Yeah, Woody Allen doing Comedy of Errors.

Responses to this piece intended for the Readers'
Forum may be sent to the Editor at L.M.Hopkins@shu.ac.uk.